After a few moments leaning on a tree, Akiko realised that she couldn’t see any spirits. She looked around, and the woods seemed normal, mundane. Even the bit of Kawasaki she could see between the trees showed no overt signs of kegare. Still, she was sure that it hadn’t been a hallucination. Quite the opposite, in fact; for the first time, she had been in control, and known what she was seeing.

So much pollution! That thought stayed in her mind, dominating it. It was no wonder Tamao wanted the area to be purified, and Akiko agreed that it would be a good idea, even if Tamao weren’t demanding it. But that didn’t help with the question of “how”. She wondered whether the other spirits she had seen could help, and how she could ask them to, but she didn’t know enough about them.

That, she decided, was the most frustrating thing. She didn’t know enough about the situation to decide what to do. She didn’t know what might be causing the kegare, or what might be an effective way to purify it.

Standing around in the woodland was definitely not going to help, however, so Akiko started making her way back through the trees to the main shrine precincts. As she got closer, she started to hear voices, and it sounded like people were shouting. Suddenly worried, she picked up her pace a bit, although hurrying through trees in her vestments was far from easy, and twigs and branches kept catching at her.

The sky was as dark and ominous as before when she finally came out into the open area, and for a moment the iwakura looked like some sort of looming creature. When she looked again, though, it was just the stones, from a new angle. The arguing voices were clear now, and shaking her head and telling herself not to start seeing monsters that weren’t there, she walked as quickly as she could across the precincts to the steps.

From the top, she could see what was happening. A knot of protesters were standing across the bottom of the steps, facing a middle-aged man who seemed to want to come in. Akiko hadn’t seen him before, but Shiraishi, who was standing behind the protesters, did seem to know him. Akiko started down the steps, listening to the argument, trying to work out what was going on.

“Look, will you please get out of his way.”

“We aren’t inside the shrine. You can’t tell us what to do on a public road.”

“You’re blocking access!”

“We aren’t blocking a public route.”

Akiko suddenly recognised the voice. It was the woman who had told her that she was watching Akiko. With that realisation, it only took a moment to pick her out of the group of protesters.

“Look, I just want to go in and talk to the priest. Could you please get out of my way?” That was the man they seemed to be blocking.

“We can stand here if we want. It’s for your own good, you know. The kami are dangerous.”

Akiko had reached the bottom of the steps.

You know, she has a point, she thought, and then turned her attention to resolving the situation

04: Commitment, Episode 27 | 1 Comment »

“A miko? I thought you said the shrine had been destroyed?” The man looked at Akiko, and then turned an accusing stare onto the woman who was blocking his way.

“It has. Burned down, and then an earthquake toppled the torii.”

“But it never had a miko before. It sounds like it is doing well to me.”

“It is not! It is declining and failing, just like all shrines, and you shouldn’t prolong it. If not for yourself, won’t you think of the children?”

“I’m doing this for my children!” The man was shouting back at her, and he stopped abruptly, breathing hard and obviously trying to get himself back under control.

“Look, you are blocking the entrance to someone’s home,” Shiraishi said, “and preventing someone from visiting them. Even though you are not on the shrine property, I don’t think that’s legal.”

“Call the police, then!” The woman was defiant, but Akiko noticed that the two protesters with her looked rather less certain, a lot more nervous. Akiko decided to address them.

“Haven’t you made your point now? I’m sure that we all know you think that no-one should visit the shrine.”

“And you expect us to just allow someone in?” The woman broke in quickly, but the other two still looked unsure.

“Well, you won’t achieve anything with us. Revd Shiraishi and I are not going to abandon the shrine and, er…” Akiko looked at the man, not knowing how to refer to him.

“Ito,” he said, clearly guessing her problem.

“And Mr Ito is not going to go home without coming into the shrine, right?”

“Absolutely,” he agreed, smiling and nodding at Akiko.

“So,” Akiko continued, “you’ve made your point now, and there’s no point risking arrest. Think how embarrassed your family would be.”

“My family would be proud of me!” The woman was still defiant, but her companions weren’t.

“Er, Mrs Watanabe, I think they’re right.”

“What? We can’t give up!”

“It’s not giving up,” the third protester said. “We’ve made our point. If he wasn’t determined to go in, he would have given up by now. And… I really can’t afford to be arrested, you know.”

“And Mr Akiyama, you know, said that we mustn’t break the law.”

“I sometimes wonder about Mr Akiyama’s dedication. Or whether he really understands the seriousness of the situation.”

Akiko realised that Mrs Watanabe’s companions looked a bit embarrassed at that; perhaps they thought that she was being a bit too enthusiastic. Akiko, on the other hand, was starting to wonder just how much Mrs Watanabe knew. If she knew just a bit about the kami, hostility might not be unreasonable.

“If you break the law, we can call the police and have you arrested. That would certainly make our lives easier. Should we try it?” Shiraishi had fished her cell phone out of her pocket, and was holding it up. One of the other two protesters held his hands up in surrender.

“No, no. That won’t be necessary.” He stepped across, standing half in front of Mrs Watanabe, blocking her in and leaving a narrow passage at the side, just large enough for Mr Ito to make it onto the steps.

“What are you doing?” Mrs Watanabe almost screeched her protest.

“Recognising the limits on what we can do. The miko’s right. We’ve made our point. Getting ourselves arrested isn’t going to help.” He turned back to Mr Ito. “If you really want to, you can go in. But I still advise you not to.”

“Thank you.” Mr Ito’s reply was very formal, as he edged round them to start climbing the steps.

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“We should go into the house,” said Shiraishi as they climbed up the steps. “They know that they can’t disturb us in there.” Akiko could hear the protesters arguing amongst themselves, keeping their voices low for the most part, and decided that they weren’t likely to interfere for a while in any case. Mr Ito nodded, but he was very quiet now, following them into the house, merely murmuring the conventional courtesies.

When Akiko brought the tea into the reception room, he and Shiraishi were still sitting in silence. The priest glanced at Akiko, raising her eyebrows and shrugging slightly.

“Won’t you have some tea, Mr Ito? And tell us why you have come.”

He took the tea, and sipped from it, staring at the table. Then he put it down, adjusting its position slightly, before looking up, glancing between Shiraishi and Akiko.

“This is a bit embarrassing,” he said, with a sigh. “I really don’t believe in this sort of thing.”

“What sort of thing?” Shiraishi asked the question gently, but Akiko thought she detected an eagerness to hear the answer. Akiko herself was certainly curious.

“Oh, I don’t know. Kegare. Curses. Purification. I don’t know what to call it.”

“What is the problem?”

Mr Ito sighed, and looked at his hands again, staring at them for several long moments.

“It sounds silly when I just say it,” he said, finally. “I’m just having lots of bad luck. Little things. Dropping a pen behind a desk. Forgetting to unmount a disk before ejecting it, and then losing important data. Tripping in the street. Small things keep going wrong with the car. And I’ve constantly got small pains, although they move around. And I can’t sleep.” Shiraishi was nodding sympathetically, but Akiko was much more alert, remembering what she had seen kegare spirits doing, remembering the girl she had seen tripped up only a few minutes before.

She tried to recapture the state she had reached in the wood. I needed to think like this, no, not quite, more like… Ah. Nearly. So maybe it was… Yes. Oh, no.

Suddenly, Akiko could see kegare. Shiraishi was almost entirely free of it, and even the bits she had were burned away as Akiko watched by a faint glow that seemed to come from the priest’s skin.

Mr Ito, on the other hand, was heavy with it. Black vines of corruption wrapped round his body, pressing thorns into his neck, while bloated centipedes crawled over them, disappearing into the folds of his clothes and then reappearing on the other side of his body, almost as if they were crawling through him. Akiko had to fight to suppress a shudder.

“Ah, Mr Ito, is your throat sore at the moment?”

“What? Er, yes. Yes, a bit. How did you know?”

“Um…” Akiko wasn’t at all sure how she could explain, but she was sure that what she was seeing was real. She turned to the priest.

“Revd Shiraishi, I think we should perform a harae for Mr Ito.” Shiraishi was briefly startled, but then she nodded.

“I’ll get ready.”

The rain was still not falling, although the clouds seemed even heavier, so they set the himorogi up on the former shrine site, this time leaving the go-shintai inside. As they knelt, and Shiraishi began the ceremony, Akiko tried to switch back to seeing the kegare. As the priest picked up the ohnusa, she finally succeeded.

The vines were moving around Mr Ito, constricting, while the centipedes scuttled ever faster. Then Shiraishi waved the ohnusa over him, and although Akiko saw no light from it this time, the vines and centipedes dissolved as if they were just painted on, and were being washed away.

Mr Ito’s face relaxed, and he smiled.

04: Commitment, Episode 27 | 1 Comment »

“10,000 yen! For an ordinary harae. And he was talking about coming back to the meetings.”

“The meetings?” Akiko was a little puzzled, but pleased to see how happy Shiraishi looked.

“Oh, Mr Ito was one of the ujiko. One of the last to abandon us. Not quite the last, before Mr Takenaka…” The priest’s face suddenly fell, and she leaned on the desk in the office. “Anyway,” she continued, brightening up again, “he was talking about taking up his role as an ujiko again. I think he’s been feeling guilty about ignoring us.”

“That is good.”

“Yes!” Shiraishi was enthusiastic again. “I think we’ve hit the low point, and are now recovering. And the plans for the shrine building are coming on well. Look!” She spread the diagrams over the desk, and started explaining them to Akiko, pointing bits out.

“We’re going to have serpents carved over here. I’ve already commissioned the work, and approved the sketches; I imagine he’s started by now. And carvings round here, as well, but I’m still discussing whether it would be better to have those done in place.”

Akiko nodded as she looked at the plans.

“We can afford all of this?”

“Oh, yes. The loan covers it. And with the ujiko coming back, the loan won’t be a problem.”

Shiraishi certainly sounded confident, but Akiko remained a bit worried. The protesters hadn’t gone away, and they could still drive the costs up. She didn’t want to think about what would happen if they ran out of money before the shrine was finished. What would Tamao do?

“That’s good,” she said, trying to sound as positive as the priest. “What about the torii?”

“Already ordered. It should be ready next week, although they’ve agreed to hold on to it until the shrine itself is built.”

“That’s fast.”

“They had a free slot in their schedule; apparently they’re going to get very busy soon, so they offered to do the job quickly, to get it finished.”

“That is good.” Maybe Tamao is helping out, Akiko thought. “What about the main building?”

“Hmm, yes. Well, we’ve found workmen who can do it, and are willing to, but they’re busy at the moment. They won’t be able to start for another three months at least.”

Maybe Tamao isn’t helping. “Three months?”

“I know. But there aren’t that many people who can build shrines, and most shrines book rebuilding months or years in advance; it takes time to raise the funds, you know. They’ll fit us in early because this is an emergency, but that’s still a few months away.”

“So why the rush to get everything else done? Where are we going to keep everything?”

“Well…” For a moment, Shiraishi actually looked nonplussed. “Er, a lot of it will stay at the workshops. And I was thinking of setting the furniture for the honden up in one of the rooms here, so that we could put the go-shintai somewhere a little more suitable. We want to keep Tamao happy, after all.”

“Yes,” Akiko agreed, “we do. And I suppose it can’t hurt to have everything ready, can it? The workmen might become available sooner than they think.”

“Right. I wonder how many of the ujiko will come to the enshrining ceremony?”

04: Commitment, Episode 27 | 3 Comments »

The immediate influence of Shiraishi’s enthusiasm had worn off by the following morning, leaving Akiko in a worried mood again. The presence of the woman protester, Mrs Watanabe, in the precincts when she went out to pay her respects to the kami did nothing to help. It wasn’t even difficult for Akiko to understand why she was worried. The kegare over Kawasaki hadn’t gone away, even if the kegare around Mr Ito had, and Tamao still didn’t have a shrine. A lot could go wrong in a few months. Once the kami were involved, lives could be turned upside down in a matter of weeks.

Akiko spent the morning restless, trying to get various jobs done around the shrine, but making much less progress than she felt she should. Were things actually getting better? They certainly hadn’t looked that way to her when she’d seen the kegare over the city, but at least the shrine seemed to be clean. She remembered the kegare around Mr Ito dissolving under the harae, and wondered if that had solved his problems.

Her idle speculation quickly hardened into a genuine question. Had it solved his problems? Akiko realised that she still didn’t really know what the connection between kegare and real, physical problems was. She was just assuming that it caused them. She had seen the spirits associated with it causing accidents, but the kegare itself just seemed to be there. Things that looked damaged when she could see the kegare often weren’t; she remembered how the shrine building had looked after Mr Takenaka’s suicide. So what was the connection? But how could she find out? She thought about calling Mr Ito, but couldn’t work out how to put the question.

The idea didn’t go away, however, and it kept bothering her for the rest of the day. Maybe she should call Mr Ito. She could just ask him how he was. That would just sound like ordinary concern, surely. It wasn’t like she had no connection to him.

She couldn’t even entirely convince herself, but by the evening she was sure that she had to call. She had to know. It was easy to find his number in the shrine records.

“Hello? This is Hidenori Ito.”

“Mr Ito? This is Akiko Tanahata, the miko from Tamao Shrine.”

“Ms Tanahata?” He sounded surprised, which was, Akiko supposed, natural. “How can I help you? Did I leave something there?”

“Oh, no, nothing like that. I was…” She paused for a moment. The question would sound oddly personal, she knew. But she had to know; she pressed on regardless. “I was just wondering whether you felt any better after yesterday’s harae.”

There was a brief pause before Mr Ito replied.

“Yes. Yes, I did. My sore throat went away, and I felt much less tired. I didn’t notice any strange problems on the way home, either.”

“Oh, that’s very good to hear. Thank you.”

“But…” He interrupted her, and Akiko fell silent. So did he, but this time Akiko was willing to wait, worrying about what he was going to say.

“I started feeling down again soon after I got home. My leg aches now, and dinner got burned.”

“Ah, Mr Ito, this might sound strange, but… Could I have a look at your house?”

04: Commitment, Episode 27 | 8 Comments »

Mr Ito had agreed to her coming round very quickly, and Akiko had only paused long enough to tell Shiraishi where she was going before setting off. It was only as she was walking over that she began to wonder why he had agreed so quickly. They had only met the previous day, after all. She remembered asking about the sore throat, and wondered whether Mr Ito thought that she had supernatural powers of some sort.

I do have supernatural powers of some sort.

The realisation brought her up short, and she stood in the street, trying to come to terms with it. There was really no other way to describe what she could do, what she had done. And at least the power of seeing seemed to be her, not Tamao.

I wish I had more useful supernatural powers, she thought, ones that actually helped to solve the problems. Shaking her head, she started walking again. If Mr Ito thought that she wanted to go to his house to use her supernatural powers on it, then, as it happened, he was absolutely right. If he thought she had the faintest idea what to do after that, he was likely to be disappointed.

She reached the house, a typical family home, fairly new, hemmed in by very similar buildings around it. She thought about trying to see kegare right away, but decided that she should introduce herself first. She rang the doorbell, and waited.

The door was opened by a woman, about the same age as Mr Ito. His wife, Akiko guessed.

“Yes? Oh, you must be the girl from the shrine. Please come in; my husband is waiting for you.” Akiko bowed slightly in acknowledgement.

“I’m Akiko Tanahata. Pleased to meet you.” She stepped up into the house, and realised that Mrs Ito was looking at her slightly oddly. Suspicious? Not exactly. Curious?

“Ms Tanahata, what can you see?” Mr Ito sounded quite worried, and his question was very abrupt.

“See?”

“That’s why you wanted to come, wasn’t it? To see whether my house was polluted?”

“Er, well, yes. But how did you know?”

“You knew about the sore throat. And then you recommended harae, which did seem to help. What…?” He suddenly stopped, looking at his wife. Akiko glanced round, to see her shaking her head slightly.

“Forgive my husband. He likes to ask rather too many questions. I think we would be better off not knowing too much about this.” Akiko opened her mouth to protest, and then closed it again. She would rather not know most of it; she could hardly argue with Mrs Ito. Mrs Ito nodded, still watching her. “Anyway, please. Do… whatever you want to do.”

“Thank you.” Akiko looked away from them, looking inside, pushing her perceptions around as she searched for the key that would give her the visions of kegare again. She still wasn’t quite used to it, but… there!

The stench was overpowering, and Akiko couldn’t stop herself covering her mouth and nose. Blackish-green slime ran down the walls of the room, while ropey tendrils in sickly red crossed the ceiling, and spider webs surrounded by clouds of unhealthy brown dust blocked the doorways. Spider spirits skittered across them, and, looking down, Akiko saw spirits like deformed rats, gnawing at the supports of the house, undermining it.

Taking a deep breath, she switched her vision back to normal.

“We need to purify your house.”

04: Commitment, Episode 27 | 2 Comments »

Both of the Itos looked shocked, but Mrs Ito recovered first, nodding in acknowledgement.

“When would be convenient?”

“This evening would be good.” Akiko was finding it hard to forget the images of decay, and the spirits trying to undermine the house. Could the whole place collapse around them? “As soon as possible, really.”

Mrs Ito nodded again, but her mouth was pressed firmly closed.

“Do you need anything?” Mr Ito asked.

“Ah, no. Just space to set the himorogi up. In here is fine, if we push the furniture back a bit. But…” Akiko remembered that she was still in her own clothes. “I need to go back to the shrine to change, and to help Revd Shiraishi bring the things we need. I’ll call you when we are coming.”

“Of course,” Mrs Ito replied. “Try not to be too late; our son has school tomorrow.”

“No, obviously.” Akiko thought she managed not to visibly shudder at the thought of a child living in that house, but she almost ran back to the shrine, only slowing down as she ran out of breath.

Shiraishi’s initial reaction was slightly sceptical.

“Go out to do a harae? Why?”

“Because Mr Ito’s house is heavy with kegare. I think there are spirits trying to make it collapse. We have to cleanse it, and drive them away.”

“And a harae will do that?”

Akiko nodded.

“You are sure?” Shiraishi was suddenly very interested.

“Yes. I can see the kegare. When you perform the harae, it all gets swept away and destroyed. We cleansed Mr Ito of a lot yesterday, but he picked some up again as soon as he got home. We have to cleanse the house, too.”

Shiraishi was quiet for a few moments, as if thinking hard about something. Then she nodded.

“I see. We have to purify ourselves first, particularly you, if you’ve been in there.” Akiko felt her skin crawl at the thought of what she might have picked up, and nodded. “Do you want to use the bath first?” Shiraishi continued.

Akiko’s sense of urgency mounted ever higher.

“There isn’t time for that. We should use it together.” She had to force herself not to run for the bathroom, and she was already down to her underwear when Shiraishi entered the changing area. Akiko glanced over, and saw that the priest was blushing bright red. Shy? Akiko quickly slipped off her underwear and hurried into the bath. Maybe the priest didn’t want to undress in front of her.

Shiraishi came into the bathroom just as Akiko was stepping into the bath itself, and she seemed to be staying as far away as possible. Akiko wondered what the problem was as she ducked under the water, but she didn’t have time to think about it; she quickly got out of the bath and went to get dressed.

Shiraishi was still dressed before Akiko; an extra few decades’ practice getting the vestments gave her an edge there. She was still rather red, but Akiko decided not to ask about it.

“Help me carry the gear,” Shiraishi said, smiling slightly.

In the car, the priest did return to the subject.

“Sorry about the bath thing. I was just a bit surprised.”

“Surprised?”

“I, er, didn’t think it was quite that urgent. Ah, here we are. Did we really need the car?”

Probably not, thought Akiko, but deciding whether to take it would have taken even more time. Shiraishi went to ring the bell, while Akiko picked up the equipment from the boot of the car. She caught bits of the conversation with the Itos as she carried it in, and then the two of them set it up.

“Akiko!” Shiraishi was whispering.

“What?”

“Should the Itos be here for the ceremony?”

“Ah.” Akiko hadn’t thought of that. “Yes, they should. That way they’ll get purified as well.” The priest conveyed the message, and Mrs Ito went to get their son while Akiko finished putting the himorogi up.

When the preparations were complete, Akiko knelt off to one side, while Shiraishi showed the Itos where they should be. Akiko knew that she should look at the kegare to monitor the situation, but she really didn’t want to see that again.

Coward, she accused herself, and tried to shift her perceptions.

For a few moments nothing happened, and Akiko realised that she was too nervous. She had to relax a bit, and then… there.

The room looked as bad as she remembered, the himorogi standing out clean within it, the shide papers hanging from the sakaki sparkling in the general gloom. Shiraishi was also clean, with a definite glow about her, a glow that Akiko saw several tendrils of kegare flinch away from. She looked down at her own hands, and saw that they were also clean. Around her knees, the mat of fungus on the floor had drawn back, leaving a channel a few millimetres wide.

Akiko glanced over at the Itos. Mr Ito had a few thin tendrils around him, much lighter than the ones over his wife. As Akiko watched, a yellow centipede ran over Mrs Ito’s face and disappeared into the corner of her eye. She had to stifle a scream, and she quickly looked at their son.

The boy was invisible within a cocoon of kegare, pus leaking from cracks at the joints whenever he moved.

Akiko turned sharply back to the himorogi, hoping, praying that the harae would work as well as she hoped.

As Shiraishi intoned the norito, even before she touched the ohnusa, Akiko saw the tendrils of kegare writhing and twitching back, smoking and dissolving at their tips. She looked down, and saw that the kegare around her had retreated a little further.

It’s working, she thought.

Shiraishi picked up the ohnusa, sweeping it through the air. The tendrils dissolved as they flinched back, and the air seemed to get fresher, clearer. She swept the ohnusa over the Itos, and the tendrils surrounding Mr Ito vanished, blown away like cobwebs, while those around his wife were reduced to thin threads. The cocoon around their son cracked and flaked away, revealing him inside, but it didn’t disappear; there were simply gaps in it.

Not enough. Shiraishi turned back, but Akiko caught her eye and shook her head, willing the priest to understand.

It seemed she did, because she turned back to the Itos, waving the ohnusa once more. This time, the cocoon shattered into dust. The Itos’ son gasped, and then collapsed onto the floor, crying.

Around him, the room seemed entirely clean.

04: Commitment, Episode 27 | 3 Comments »